Taang Week 2013
by balai
Summary: Day 7: Realization. "You think this is funny. It's not like you're so suave, yourself." (Now complete.)
1. Day 1- Regret

**Author's note: **So, "Guest" asked if I was doing Taang Week. And while I've never before known what these "weeks" were, I looked it up on my handy-dandy—google! And decided that YES, I am doing Taang Week! These are going to be kind of short compared to most of my uploads, but hey, you're getting one EVERY day so that makes up for it, right? This is the sister piece to "Trials of Sincerity", because they fit into the same format and storyline (but they made more sense on their one-I'm thinking of posting them on both, however...if that's allowed). I'd love to hear the input of all you readers out there.

Anyway, without further ado...

* * *

Day 1- Regret

* * *

When they were twenty-seven, their secret relationship became a secret affair.

The day Aang married was the most unforgettable day in both their lives. For her, it was because she knew that would (should) be their end. Fifteen years of _'them'_ turned into _'Aang and Mrs. Aang—and oh yeah, Toph's there too'_ in the small time between sunrise and sunset. It was a crisp autumn day and the trees shed their leaves and she imagined if she could see the spectacle, it would be beautiful (but then again, Toph had never understood the depth behind the concept of _beauty_).

Aang stood smiling on grand display in the Fire Palace courtyard and dozens—_hundreds_—of voices and faces weaved around him, congratulations spewing from their mouths as they promised him that this would be the most memorable day of his long life. They were right—he'd definitely _never_ forget the hours he spent after the marriage ceremony staring at Toph's stoic, uninterested face that couldn't return his gaze.

Of course, he had been the perfect groom—he'd gazed lovingly into his bride's dark eyes, his own crinkled with strange elation that he didn't understand. He'd said all the right things as they passed the chalice of wine between them and he'd squeezed her hand when their palms were bound together with a delicate red ribbon. He'd kissed her enthusiastically—passionately, even—when they'd been introduced for the first time as man and wife and the masses had cheered madly when he pulled away from his breathless blushing bride. But when he'd looked away, it was immediate and unintentional that his eyes locked on the blind earthbender and he swore in that instant that the earth fell away from beneath his very feet.

It was wrong.

He had proposed to his new wife with the sake of his people on the forefront of his mind. She was an airbender—the last of her people—and he was an airbender—the last to the rest of the world—and together they could restore the airbending race to the world and keep their culture alive. When he'd proposed to her, he _did_ love her greatly, but he knew it wasn't the love that built a marriage. He loved her because it was his duty to love her. He even loved her like he loved Sokka or Suki or Zuko—like family. He could live with her and respect her and even raise children with her and keep her happy. But Toph—

He realized, standing beside his newly wed wife in front of the world, that he couldn't live without _her_. A world without Toph Beifong would be a nightmarish hell and he wanted no part of it.

His hand brushed against hers when it was her turn to congratulate the new couple despite the arm that was slung loosely around his wife's waist. Toph's hair had fallen from its elaborate style and hung in her eyes but he could see traces of a small, hurt smile tugging the corners of her lips and he thought his chest might burn him up through the bile in his throat.

"Nice job, Twinkletoes," Toph chirped happily, swinging her fist into his arm. "We never thought it would happen."

Their friends had laughed at her teasing barb, but only Toph was aware of the pained stutter that his heart gave and only Aang was looking closely enough to notice the imperceptible clench of her jaw. She never said the words aloud, but inside she was screaming at the top of her lungs.

She'd _hoped_ it would never happen.

At least, not like this.

As the celebration moved indoors for a grand feast, he pulled her aside into the shadows. His hand rested against the nape of her warm neck but she kept her face turned down from his sight.

"Toph," he whispered gruffly, "I need to know; are you—"

"Don't ask me that," she interrupted. She sounded far steadier than she felt and she thanked the spirits that she'd never before regarded for her display of composure.

"I have to know what's going on in your mind."

The earthbender shook her head. "It's too late, Aang. What I'm thinking doesn't matter anymore."

But he kissed her gently without thinking twice and she realized it would always matter to him. When she kissed him back, he almost believed he could read her mind. The gentle press of her lips against his lulled his mind into a place where clouds were weightless and her skin was a balm protecting him from the fierce winds that bore at him from the world around them. His arms pulled her close and tears dripped down her cheeks onto his while she ran her fingers through his short hair. He tried with his every breath to take her pain from her, to shoulder it for her so she would once again walk taller and hold her head where it should be held—above them.

They parted and when they joined the others in the great hall, it was as it had always been—they acted as though it had never happened. He sat beside his wife and smiled and she sat beside the Fire Lord and toasted to their happy marriage. But the glances he stole at her and the way his ears picked up her gentlest words felt deceitful and wrong and he felt a new emotion that they had never shared before.

He felt regret. It was not regret that their affair would hurt his new wife. It was not regret that they were lying. Instead, it was heavy regret that what they were was _wrong_. She was the one thing in his life that felt so right and made him feel whole—but that was _wrong_, because she was not his and he was another's. _They_ had become something distorted and it was his deepest, darkest wish that they could live in a world where they were right—because them being _wrong _was so very wrong.

She was his everything and he had given her up.

To their dying days, they would regret nothing more.


	2. Day 2- Balance

Day 2- Balance

* * *

When they were thirty-one, Toph was pregnant.

The first couple of months had gone smoothly enough. In all honesty, she hadn't even _known_ of her condition until it started to become a problem. One minute she was fine. She was chief of the police force in the young Republic City. She was wrangling criminals left and right and thwarting coups with her advanced sight—

And then the next thing she knew, she was pregnant.

Toph had never been naïve. She knew how she had come to be pregnant—she was old enough to _become_ pregnant, so she was _definitely_ old enough to know _how_ it had happened (even if she didn't know the father of the child growing in her womb).

But she didn't know how it had _happened_.

Toph Beifong could _not_ be _pregnant_.

It was unexpected how abruptly (and yet so slowly) it came to light. One minute she'd been pacing the floor of the West precinct interrogation room, drilling some small-time fall-guy for information on his boss's whereabouts. She could feel his every twitch, every twist, ever sigh and stammer and tick. She _had him_ right under her thumb as she talked him out of his poorly spun lies and she was _so close_ to having a useful lead—

And then things became fuzzy.

It was faint at first, so at first she paid no mind to the flicker that signaled another presence. But then, just when she had snapped herself back into focus, it picked back up—stronger this time. A heart beat that felt so far away, mimicking her own pace. It startled her, leaving her silenced mid-thought. There it was again, that sure-and-steady faint-but-thriving heartbeat—

But there was no one else there.

After that day, she began to pay a little more attention. She had always—_always_—been so aware and cautions and _ready_ for anything that this surprise was unwelcome. And, if she was being honest, it was _terrifying._

Later, she was embarrassed to admit how paranoid she became. But she couldn't help it—she was being followed _everywhere_.

"Do spirits have heartbeats?" Toph asked Aang one day on their weekly rounds of the city. They walked closely, with their hands brushing but never touching.

Aang looked at her curiously. "I don't believe so. Why?"

The small woman shrugged and kicked at a pebble. She _watched_ it tumble away like ripples on the surface of a pond made by a skipped stone (which she hadn't ever seen to decide their likeness for herself). "I think I'm being followed by one," she muttered glumly.

The Avatar chuckled. "I thought you didn't believe in spirits."

"I don't," Toph confirmed. She had _never_ put stock into the spiritual mumbo-jumbo that Aang preached so zealously. She preferred to believe only what she could _see_ with her own two feet. And until then, she hadn't ever seen a spirit… "I don't know. Maybe I do."

It took a lot to change Toph's mind. Aang thought on that, considering for a moment her nervous tone and shaking hand. "Hang on," he stopped her strides, slipping his hand into hers. He turned her, resting his warm, heavy hands on her shoulders, and all the childish humour in his mature face had disappeared like sand footprints on a beach. "You aren't joking. You actually think you're being followed by a spirit?"

"With a heartbeat," she amended.

Aang frowned. "I don't _think_ spirits have hearts."

"Well there's something following me that has a pulse and no feet," she snapped. "Tell me how that one works because maybe _you_ can see something _I_ can't."

"There's nothing." He looked around them—they truly were alone in a small alleyway between a pair of floral shops. Not even a rat skittered by and the rainwater had stopped dripping from the roofs long before.

"There's _something_, Aang. I can _feel_ it." Her voice rose with the panic she felt. If _Aang_ couldn't even see it, it had to be something _terribly dangerous…_

"I can feel it too," Aang announced in a sudden hush. He had closed his eyes as she taught him to do and almost instantly, sure as the night that was swallowing them, it was _there_. It was unlike anything he'd ever felt before.

What _was_ it?

"It's making my vision fuzzy," Toph complained when they started off again. "I can barely see the ground beneath me, much less far away." And that was so strange, she thought, because it was such a _soft_ beat—

"Toph," Aang called her name. She stopped, and she realized that he'd hung back (but the thrumming had been so distracting she hadn't noticed). His light feet moved closer and her sight seemed to echo out from her as though she was seeing double (but that _wasn't possible_). "Toph," he repeated, "it's coming _from you_."

There were two of him—and neither was making sense—but when he grabbed her firmly by the shoulders, he had only one pair of hands.

"That's impossible," she said. But even as she did, she felt it vibrating from within her and her head spun and she tried, with all the disorienting buzzing, to discern why she felt like she was leaning.

His hand pressed into her taut stomach and her focus zeroed onto the feeling, as though his touch kept her rooted and her mind cleared. He sucked in a breath through barred teeth and his brows crinkled (how could it be?) and his mouth was dry—

"Toph, you're pregnant."

And with those words, her whole world shifted and he picked her up and helped her learn how to walk again.

Less than a month passed and her stomach began to swell. She didn't have a grace-period to acclimate to the abnormal growth—she just became more and more _and more_ pregnant. Toph swore that she was going to burst like one of Sokka's air balloons (and Sokka willingly agreed). With the foreign weight throwing off her equilibrium, her vision was always fuzzy and her feet were always shaky. But Aang stuck by her more than what could really be seen as 'proper', watching after her by night in her small townhome and guiding her about arm-in-arm by day. She clung to him desperately to keep from teetering on her own feet as her womb expanded out impossibly far.

He helped her find her balance when she had none. And the first time he looked upon her daughter's pink, pouty face, he felt a peace wash through him.

He helped her balance her feet and she helped him balance his heart.


	3. Day 3- Manners

**Author's Note: **Okay, so I'm getting a little scared (wiping proverbial sweat from my brow as this is being typed with both hands). I-don't have day four done, much less any of the others. Eep. I'll get to work then...

(Can someone explain to me how this "week" works?)

* * *

Day 3- Manners

* * *

When Tenzin was six years old, Toph was a terrible influence.

Since he was born, the boy had always been very serious. As an infant, Aang would perform little tricks to make the boy laugh—but at most, Tenzin would giggle for a bout and then return to looking around in stoic curiosity. His father worried that something was wrong—afterall, he had _never _seen a child so severe. But as Tenzin began to grow in the shadow of his older brother, Bumi (who greatly took after the antics of his namesake), Aang realized they were just early to fall into their roles as sibilings.

It was like Sokka and Katara all over again (if not to an extreme). Except this time, they were _his_ children and he couldn't just suggest penguin sledding to settle them down (because he was supposed to discipline them and teach them right, according to his wife). Tenzin may have been serious, but he was not above petty sibiling rivalry—especially at six.

When Tenzin was six years old, Bumi was eight and Usha—Aang's only daughter—was three years old and louder and more wild on her own than both boys combined. She was a handful that not even her own mother could deal with as the two boys ran about fighting around her feet.

One menace, she could handle at a time. But not _three_.

"I can't take this Aang," Dhara screamed at her husband one particularly stressful day. "These children are driving me crazy! They run about like a bunch of wild hog-monkies. They terrify the builders and the Acolytes. They're always screaming during meditation and setting up pranks. I can't take them anywhere! They have no manners."

"I'll fix it," he promised. He was the Avatar. He was sure that he would. After all, there had once been a time when _he _was told he had the manners of a hog monkey. And so, to fix it, Aang brought the best of the best.

Who better to reform his children than the very teacher that had reformed _him_?

"I don't have time for this, Twinkletoes," Toph told him as he helped her climb down from Appa's saddle. Little five-year-old Lin lept off the beast into Aang's outstretched arms with a squeal and he spun her around before setting her onto the grass to take off to find his sons (and no doubt wreak havoc with them—he'd yet to determine which of them was the leader).

"Republic City is at peace," he responded. "I'm sure that Lieutenant Sho can take care of things for a few days."

"He's eighteen. He can hardly take care of a goldfish."

"We were responsible for saving the world when we were twelve."

"Yes. But he's not twelve and he's not us and he couldn't save the world, much less a goldfish if it were drowning."

"If you have so little faith in him,, why did you put him in charge in your place?"

"Because I didn't expect you to keep me here for _days_."

Aang sighed. "I thought it would be good for you. You'll get to spend time with Lin—"

Toph shoved him and he knew that she hadn't intended to be gentle. "I _do_ spend time with her. Don't you go assuming otherwise."

"Okay," he held his palms in defense—a gesture lost on her empty eyes. Aang reached up and scratched at the skin of his bald head. "You're right. I just figured—"

"That I'd swoop in and save your ass like always from your angry wife?"

He flinched. His wife wasn't _always_ that angry—though he would admit that he called on Toph for assistance more often when she was. "That you might appreciate some downtime as well as the chance to teach Lin how to be a proper lady…and save my ass from Dhara's wrath."

Toph shook her head, her expression fierce. "I would _never_ torture my daughter like that. The only things I plan to teach her are metal bending, how to kick ass, and how to be the second greatest earthbender in the world."

Aang wished she could see for once just so he could strike her with his still-impressive sad puppy eyes (though he imagined they wouldn't have worked anyways, because blind or not, Toph was still Toph). He sighed and squeezed her arm gently, imploringly. "Toph, please, do this for me."

She was silent for so long that he actually believed she was going to refuse. And just as he was mentally preparing to grovel (because Dhara would surely have his hide if he made her a promise and broke it not a day later), she grinned from beneath her dark fringe and started laughing that tinkling laugh that had entranced him since he first heard it in the eerie swamp when he was a boy.

"Calm down, Twinkletoes. Your heart's beating faster than a rabbaroo." Aang reddened and it only added to her amusement. "I'll whip your kids into shape."

He raised an eyebrow and tried not to seem startled. "Uh—but no actual whipping, right?"

"No actual whipping." With her forefingers she drew an 'X' over her heart—a childish oath of sincerity. "I'm not Queen Sparky; whipping isn't really _my_ thing."

He tried to ignore her wink.

"Thank you, Toph. I owe you."

"Don't thank me; you don't owe me yet."

And he should have taken her words to heart.

She stayed with them on Air Temple Island for a whole week. Aang was busy overseeing the construction of the temple so he hardly saw her except in passing. As a precaution, Toph insisted on keeping the children secluded from the rest of the Island residents_—"They have to estrange themselves from their bad influences in order to make a full reformation. It's for their own good."_—They ate their meals with her and Lin in their suite and every morning, the three children reported at dawn for their instruction.

Dhara thought it was going just wonderfully. Usha was sweet and happy and quiet. When Dhara put the boys to bed each night, they were polite in every way. They took their baths without question and didn't scream for long stories to lull them to sleep. For the first time since Tenzin and Bumi had started fighting, Dhara crawled into bed without an ache plaguing her mind.

"This is wonderful," she told her husband one night as she pulled his arm over her waist after she felt him slide beneath the covers. "Toph is doing a wonderful job."

Aang stared up at the ceiling and smiled a secret smile. "Yes," he agreed. "Toph is wonderful."

On the last night of her stay, the Beifongs invited Aang and Dhara to dine with the children so they could demonstrate their new manners. Bumi greeted them and showed them to their seats and he pulled out his mother's chair and bowed to his father. Lin and Usha set out the plates and Tenzin and Bumi brought out the dishes and served their parents silently. The children all sat around the table in their respective spots and their posture was impeccable as they waited in silence for their parents to take the first bite.

Dhara was first (Aang would never admit that he was waiting for her reaction to decide if he would partake in the meal or not). "This is wonderful, children. Delicious."

Tenzin smiled. "Bumi made it, mother," he explained. The wild-haired boy grinned from ear-to-ear. "And I made the desert—fruit pies just like Monk Gyatsu used to make." The boy poked at his dinner and spoke with a mouth full of food, "Usha helped a _little_."

Toph reprimanded him. "Tenzin, what did we say about talking with your mouth full?" The boy swallowed down his noodles and hung his head, red seeping into his ears beneath dark hair.

"That's wonderful, Tenzin," Aang praised, ignoring the breach of ettiquite. He picked at his rice and chewed at the steamed vegetables and smiled at his family eating silently around him. Despite her lack of sight, Toph was a natural cook and an even better mentor (and not just at earthbending). "You've done a wonderful job with them, Toph. Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet. They're great students," she responded humbly. She looked every bit the aristocrat she was raised to be as she sat straight and ate her food with delicate motions. "Thankfully they weren't too far gone to retrain—unlike you and Snoozles were when you asked me." Aang cleared his throat uncomfortably at his wife's curious and his sons' teasing looks (Usha loudly wanted to know who 'Snoozles' was). Toph smiled innocently—and Aang wondered why the expression seemed so familiar (and elicited such pain in his shin). "With practice and perseverance, they will be fit for even the courts of the Fire Nation—if I could train Katara to be a proper Fire Lady, then I could train your children no problem."

_Could_.

Dhara smiled so proudly.

"Tenzin, get your elbows off the table," Toph barked suddenly.

The younger boy blushed and pulled his hands into his lap. "Yes, Sifu Toph."

"_Sifu_ Toph?" Aang had been unaware that anyone but him had ever used the title—and he wondered (dangerously) how many stories-that-he'd-rather-not-have-his-children-kno w-especially-his-sons Toph had told them.

Only, he didn't have long to wonder. Because all too soon, he regretted having Toph tell his children _anything_ _at all_…

Dhara's face paled in horror. "Bumi! Get your feet off the table this _instant_—what are you _doing_?"

"I'm picking my toes, Mother, just like Sifu Toph taught me!"

Dhara's brown eyes widened. "Tenzin, mind your manners—do not use your hands. Anyone would think _you_ were the ones raised in a cave."

"But Sifu Toph said this was the proper way to eat it."

Aang looked at Toph. The little woman sat demurely as she ate her own meal and Aang's eyes narrowed. He could almost _feel_ her tiny feet digging into his shin…

"Bumi, do _not_ spit at your brother!"

"Tenzin, we do _not_ pretend to be a sabertoothed moose-lion with our chopsticks!"

"Bumi! Pardon yourself, we are not barbarians and we do not belch like we are one!"

"Tenzin, do not throw food at your sister—_Usha_! Do not throw it _back_—no, you must swallow your food, you don't show—"

"_But Sifu Toph said—"_

Dhara bolted up from her chair. "I do not _care_ what Toph has told you! She is _not_ your Sifu! She is a _horrible_ influence on you and you will no longer be receiving etiquette lessons from her!"

And the woman stood red-faced before the children as she lectured them about spitting and belching and keeping hands to oneself and spirits-damned toe-picking and how utterly _deplorable and unbecoming and reproachable_ all of those things were—

Toph simply laughed into her napkin and bit her tongue. Because she _knew_ that and Aang knew that she knew and he could only smile and try not to laugh because laughing would only upset his wife more.

He had begged her like a fool to teach to his children the thing she hated most and she had gallantly played him like the fool that he was.

From that day on, Tenzin knew better than to take any teachings of proper manners and ettiquitte that Toph was willing to give. He respected Toph as the wise and powerful bending master that she was—

But 'manners' and 'Toph' were two things that did not coexist.


	4. Day 4- Family

Day 4- Family

* * *

When they were nineteen years old, she was perfectly fine being alone.

She wasn't alone, but she would be fine if she was. She had Aang and they went everywhere together—they traveled to all stretches of the Earth Kingdom, colonies of the Fire Nation, and even the poles. She attended peace conferences with him and stood by him when he made speeches to the public. Together, they traveled from town to town helping people rebuild (or at least create a plan to rebuild) and they worked with every dignitary from all reaches of the globe to negotiate the era of peace they had fought to the bone to ensure. In some ways, Aang was all she needed.

She told him he was all she had.

She hadn't meant it in a sentimental way and she definitely hadn't meant to seem as though she was intending to guilt him. When she had told him, she was simply relaying a truth that was apparent and mundane. He _was_all she had—and that was fine with her. She didn't need much; she didn't want much. She'd given up a life of 'much' and bountiful plenty's for him and she certainly would stand by her decision now after seven years.

She preferred things to be that way.

Which was why she was so rattled when he announced they were going to visit her parents.

He hadn't even really given her much of a warning or time to prepare herself. They had been traveling through the southern mountains of the Earth Kingdom for several days and that was absolutely fine with her (she loved the familiarity of the surroundings and the bittersweet nostalgia that came with it). On the last day when they packed up, Aang settled all their things in Appa's saddle and it wasn't until they were high in the air and she felt least at ease that he told her his plan.

"We're going to Gaoling," he announced above the wind.

Toph felt cold as the clouds rushed around her, but nothing chilled her more than those words. "Sorry," she twisted a finger into her ear as though it would clear her hearing and unsay what had been said, "The wind is pretty loud up here. Say that again."

"We're going to Gaoling," he repeated and this time there was no mistaking the words because he had climbed across the furs in the saddle to sit right next to her. His knee brushed hers, fabric brushing against her bare skin, and then his warm hand gently settled on her leg in a gesture that was supposed to be reassuring. "We're going to visit your parents."

"Twinkletoes, you are stupid." Her body felt paralyzed in fear, but a strange adrenaline kept her mouth running. "I haven't talked to my parents in seven years. What makes you think that I'd want to do so now?"

"I know that you want to, Toph. You've wanted to for a long time." _Since you left_. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders but she was too stunned to fight him off in her anger. "Besides—I figured you'd want to introduce me to your family."

The blind girl crossed her arms. "They've already met you, remember?"

"Yeah." Aang shrugged and pulled her closer and Toph argued with herself whether she should feel as comforted by the hard warmth of his body as she was when she was angry with him. His fingers played at the soft skin of her wrist and he mumbled against her hair. "But they met me as the Avatar. I thought you might want to introduce me to them as your—you know—"

"Traveling companion?" Toph scoffed. "They already think you kidnapped me years ago."

"I was going to say as your boyfriend."

"And suddenly the fact that you 'kidnapped' me will sound _so much_ better." Her voice was dripping with unadulterated sarcasm. "Good thinking, Twinkletoes."

Aang frowned. "But that isn't what happened—they have to know that. I mean, I'm the Avatar—"

"My parents won't give a damn if you're the Avatar or the Earth King or even Vishnu himself. As far as they care, you're the reason that their helpless, spineless, perfectly subservient daughter hasn't been home for years and was off _gallivanting_ with dangerous men and war criminals."

"But it's what you wanted—"

"Aang, do you honestly think my parents have ever cared what I wanted?" The Beifong heiress sighed in frustration. "I had to hide my earthbending from them because they were afraid I would be too independent."

The young Avatar licked his lips, wiping away his nerves, and then he smiled a small, quivering smile. "Maybe it will be different this time. You're an adult now—they've got to see that."

Toph pulled her legs to her chest and frowned. She replied dryly, "Sure, Aang. That's what will happen."

"They're your family, Toph. They've got to want you in their life."

The small girl couldn't find it in her to point out how absurd and distorted his view of her family really was. It wasn't that they didn't want her in their lives—they did ever-so-much. But they didn't want _Toph_ in their family; they wanted _Toph Beifong_, innocent, helpless heiress to the Beifong estate and silent daughter of Lao and Poppy Beifong. Toph was loud and brash and strong like the earth she controlled with a mastered ease—and they would never accept that. They wanted their porcelain doll, not the living-breathing-human that resembled her but caked in mud.

Aang was still talking and Toph wasn't listening.

"Alright," she interrupted. "I'll see my family if it's that important to you."

The boy smiled. "I just want you to know that your family loves you. I never had a family like you do—"

She went right back to ignoring him. Aang _did_ have a family; _she_ was his family. And if she might say so herself, she was a far better family than her biological parents ever were. But where she'd been born to only her father and mother, he had her and Katara and Sokka and Zuko and Suki—

But then again, Katara had left and Zuko was busy and Sokka and Suki were off having a family of their own—

And suddenly, they were there.

Her parents didn't even greet them themselves. They sent a servant to show them in, leading them through the massive estate to the smallest parlour (the one that Toph hated the most because all the walls were made of glass and the floor was lined with wood plats that were '_elegant and_ _sophisticated'_.) Once there, they had been received happily—not warmly. The Beifongs were not affectionate people. They were the perfect picture of aristocracy (and warmth and affection had no room in the aristocracy).

Aang gushed immediately in an attempt to clear up any misunderstandings or hard feelings over Toph's disappearance with him for the last several years. Lao and Poppy Beifong listened dutifully, even eagerly, as though what he said really mattered to them. Toph only cursed that she could not read her parents clearly and she began to estimate how long it would take to tunnel her way outside and far away from the house she'd once called home.

But somehow, she'd been roped into a portrait sitting (a portrait of the family with the Avatar to commemorate their daughter's _alliance—_'alliance', not relationship, because Lao hadn't let Aang talk long enough to explain_that_ bit).

They _had_ to know she was coming.

Toph was poked and prodded into the finest, softest, _newest_ fashion. Her hair had been ripped down from its normal bulbous bun and was being twisted and mangled into some unintelligible shape that she was sure must be unflattering (because her mother picked it). Powder caked the inside of her nose and dreadful kohl lined her eyes and something sticky and _disgusting_ was pasted across her lips and then her shoes were crammed into shoes that were _far too small_ for even her delicate feet—

And then she was seated on a settee and told not to move.

She couldn't even tell where Aang was to beg him to end her misery.

Her father reprimanded: "Toph, straighten your back. A lady does not slouch."

The painter lamented: "Miss Toph, please stop moving."

Her mother lectured: "Put your shoes back on, Toph."

"Miss Toph, please look this way. Soften your eyes so that you look wistful—"

"Excuse me?" Toph whipped her head around with an angry expression and her ear facing the portrait painter "I can't _see_. How am I supposed to _look_ anything?"

They thought she was coming home to them. They thought things would just fall back into place like they were when she was twelve and they didn't know anything of the Blind Bandit.

They were wrong.

"Toph," her father said, "you mustn't argue. Proper ladies—"

"I am not a proper lady, dad!" The blind girl bolted from her chair and suddenly the long hanging sleeves on the dress she wore were the most offending thing in the world. She ripped at them and ignored her mother's appalled gasps. "I may be your daughter, but I'm an earthbender—not a porcelain doll or a face in a painting. I helped the Avatar—my _boyfriend_—save the world from the tyranny of the Fire Lord and that still wasn't good enough for you. All you care about is how society sees you—you shouldn't even be getting this painted. Your _society_ doesn't even know I exist because you're too ashamed to have a blind, imperfect daughter sullying your name!"

All her parents took from that was that their daughter—their pride and joy and prodigy—was being courted by the Avatar. Toph promptly grabbed Aang by the wrist and dragged him outside (_elegantly_ kicking over the painter's easel on her way out). He didn't say a word as he helped her climb atop Appa and when she threw her shoes over the side he just bit his tongue and hoped she wouldn't be mad at him for too long (because, truth be told, she was all he had, too).

That night, Toph laid in her stone tent and thought about family and what it meant. Growing up, it had meant rules and order, shoes and entrapment. When she'd left her home, it meant fun and toil and hugs and having_real friends_ that she could depend on whenever she needed. They weren't her family by blood, but in her heart they were more her family than that which the damned 'spirits' had cast her into. When Toph was with her family, she thought that maybe it was better to be alone—because they didn't really care.

But the truth was, Toph had lied. She had never been fine with being alone.


	5. Day 5- Tattoos

**Author's Note:** I'm sorry! This is later than expected and I was hoping to be diligent and not break the lineup. But alas, I've had zero computer access since my last installment so...ehhhhhh. Constructive criticism is always welcomed!

* * *

Day 5- Tattoos

* * *

When they were twenty-three, they traveled far and wide.

Everywhere they went, they were received with warm hospitality and generous gifts of gratitude from the people living in the small, desolate towns. Even when the villagers had nothing, for their _Avatar_ they would go out of their way to place a warm meal before him and sometimes they would even offer their own bed and sleep on the floor just so he could have a place to sleep in their humble home. They said it would be an honour and a blessing to have the Avatar, the _last airbender_, stay under their roof. Some believed it would settle their karma for the afterlife and others believed it would bring them luck and protection against the wrongs in the world.

Toph absolutely hated it. These people had next to nothing and they were willing to give it up for _Aang_'s comfort? He didn't need to be spoiled—he was a nomad; he didn't need much of anything at all to be content. He had his bed roll, he had Appa, he had Toph (and their new companion, Dhara the _airbender_ who rubbed Toph the wrong way). The way Toph saw it, he was already pretty spoiled for a monk.

She asked him about it once—_"These people have nothing. Why do you let them give you all they have?"—_and his response had been simple: _"They want to do it."_ When they had first started traveling to the small, war-wracked towns, Aang had humbly declined the service that was offered to him by the villagers. But they had begged him—saying it was their honour to serve the Avatar when they had a chance, and it was an _honour_ to be in his presence. Some did it out of selfish reasons, fearing that not extending such hospitality would reflect badly on them, but most did it out of their giving nature—they knew what it was to have nothing and no one deserved to feel that way all the time.

But she still didn't like it. Stubbornly, at each and every residence they visited, Toph would opt out of the comfortable (or sometimes not-so-comfortable) bed and choose instead to stay outside, on the _ground_ where she could _see_ and keep Appa company.

They were in a small town on the farthest island of the Fire Nation this time. The farmer and his wife greeted them kindly and served them a warm meal of rice and—well, rice, as it was all the farm had managed to cultivate that year. They spoke warmly of the young boy's valiant deeds, of their gratitude of the era of peace they were in. Aang told them of his hopes for the new Harmony Restoration Movement that he was on his way to discuss with the Fire Lord and they asked him, with a hopeful sort of desperation, when the new capitol city that he spoke so zealously of would be available to live in.

And then, too quickly to snap her fingers or blink, the couple was gushing over the Avatar once more and how pleased they were to have such a _spiritual icon_ in their home. They praised him, they thanked him, they may as well have bowed on their elbows and knees like toads and licked at his feet, Toph thought, with the way they were going on about him.

Then, just like all the others they had paid visit to, they talked and talked and all she could hear was their praise about his "spectacular" tattoos. And just like every time before when it had been brought up, she had no understanding of what they spoke of.

"It's amazing," the wife gasped as she studied the young man's wrist, "that even after all these years, the air nomad's culture has been preserved in one young man. These lines speak so much that the world is just beginning to understand again…"

"That's why I'm proud to display them," Aang responded, his voice reverent and reminiscent. "My people are lost to the world, but if I can help it, their ways—their stories and beliefs and practices—will not be. At least," he laid a hand on Toph's shoulder (and while the young monk did not understand the unspoken meaning of the gesture, the elderly couple suddenly looked on the blind girl with brighter interest, "I hope they will not be for much longer."

The older man chewed his food and the smacking of gums annoyed Toph's sensitive ears. "Your people were highly religious—monks, if I believe."

"Yes," Aang nodded in affirmations. "I was training to be a monk myself when I parted ways from them."

"Marital relationships are forbidden in the culture, if I remember correctly."

Aang coughed and his hand fell from Toph's warm shoulder. "Uh—" he chewed his food slowly and the chopsticks twirled between his fingers. "Yes, that is what the ancient nomads decreed. They believed that spiritual enlightenment could not be reached with things such as romantic bonds tethering us to the world when we are meant to be one with the air."

It had been the hardest thing for him to come to terms with both times he had sought out Guru Pathik to help him align his chakras and master the Avatar state. Even now, so close to being a fully realized Avatar, he struggled with it despite his years to conquer his emotions.

The old man eyed the Avatar shrewdly. "Do you have plans to stray from their path?" He looked between the tattooed young man and the blind earth bender (completely ignoring the fair-haired young woman that sat to Aang's left) and pointedly nodded his head

Aang balked. "I—uh—"

"What is a tattoo?" Toph asked suddenly. Aang jumped at her voice and she looked genuinely confused—he wondered, in that moment, if she had asked _then_ rather than earlier more for his benefit than her knowledge.

"They're—" Aang halted as he wracked his mind for a way to explain the markings in his skin. "—they're pictures on your skin."

"Like when Sokka used to paint on my skin with his brush?"

"No—they're actually pictures _in_ your skin and they stay there forever."

Toph frowned. She tried to understand what he was saying, but she couldn't shake the feeling of the cool ink that Sokka had smeared across her legs as he tried to explain what a picture was. "How does it get in your skin?"

"One of the monks would use a chisel to break the skin and dip the point in pigment, then—"

"You're saying that this great spiritual symbol that everyone has been making such a big deal about was given to you by sadistic monks?"

He frowned. "That's not what it—"

"Can I see them?"

He didn't know how to answer.

Later that night, Toph laid beneath the stars-she-couldn't-see hidden by a stone slab shelter that made more sense to her than an endless sky or ink inside skin. Aang crept quietly on airy steps and crawled along the ground to lay beside her. His hands guided hers along the blue lines that ended in arrows along his limbs and he helped her fingers trace the design as though she was able to see them. But Toph couldn't see a thing. She'd felt every inch of his body time and time before, and even this time (knowing there were secret pictures beneath the surface) nothing was different.

She fell asleep wondering about tattoos and what was so special about his baby soft skin and what was blue anyway?


	6. Day 6- Lies

**Author's Note: **Which I hereby dub, "I'm late take-two". This one is nowhere near as long as I had wanted it to be, but as I was writing it, I feared that prolonging it would sully the intent. So, here you go.

* * *

Day 6- Lies

* * *

When they were twenty-nine, Toph loved to dream.

She loved everything about dreaming. In her dreams, her body never touched the ground but still she did not feel lost like she would if she were awake. She was soothed and caressed by indescribable feelings that held her and warmed her and eased her into the chaos that the world tried to inflict her with. In her dreams, she could be nothing and everything all at once. She could see the world through who she used to be, both as herself and past lives that she hardly believed in. But most of all, when she dreamed, Toph was alive and happy and loved and at peace.

Then she opened her eyes.

They fluttered open slowly, clouded with the haze of sleep and dust left by dream-spirits, and almost immediately she let them shut again. Her arms stretched above her head, muscles relishing the euphoric release of tension as her back arched and her toes kicked at the heavy sheets covering her.

"Good morning, sleepy-head," a deep, warm voice cooed into her ear, raspy from hours of disuse. Strong, lean arms wrapped around her waist and pulled her atop his unclothed body and Toph laughed as she pretended to fight him away. Her efforts did not prevail, however, and instead she sunk into the kisses he was peppering onto her face and neck, her hair and shoulders, and at last she snagged his lips between hers and they sighed in unison and sunk into the soft mattress beneath his back.

"Good morning, Twinkletoes," Toph murmured into his mouth. She pulled back then, and her eyes drifted open of her will and she stared through soft green orbs into his steel-grey and smiled. Her small pale hand—the colour of the flesh of a moon peach, she had learned—brushed dark hairs (soft and thick and dark like Fire Nation soil) from his face.

Aang smiled back. "I love waking up to you seeing me."

"I love _seeing_ you."

His thumb drew circles against her back and he stared at her unabashedly. "I won't ever be able to thank the spirits enough for giving you your sight."

The small earthbender chortled. "Thank them? It's the least they could have done after we saved the world." Her nose buried into his chest and she breathed in the familiar, musky scent.

Aang tensed. "Toph—that's no attitude to have. The spirits were enormously kind to grant you such a gift. By treating it with such disregard—" Her soft lips silenced him, and Aang let his expression soften—just being this close to her made him forget his anger at anything short of flying into the Avatar state in rage.

"Aang." Toph kissed his temple and ran her hands through his hair, tracing the sensitive line of his arrow. She closed her eyes tightly as she nuzzled into his neck and the hot tears pricking her newly-seeing eyes were unwelcome but justified. "I could never take this for granted."

She rose on her arms and stared down on his handsome face (though she had seen few men or women since her sight had been given to her, she was sure that his was the most handsome she ever would see in her life). "I can _see_ you—and not just you as the earth sees, but I can see every part of you."

She kissed his eyelids. "I can see your eyes and the way they sparkle when you look at me."

She kissed the corner of his upturned lips. "I can see the little smile that spreads across your face when you're thinking about me."

She raised his hand to her lips and kissed the blue lines there. "I can see your hands reaching outward just to hold me."

She kissed the flesh above his heart, marred with red lines from an injury long ago inflicted. "I can still see your heartbeat and every stutter it gives. But now, I can see the bright red blush that kisses your cheeks." She kissed his cheek and the man smiled.

"I can see you exactly as I saw you before—only now, there are amazing shapes and unfathomable colours filling in the blank spots where there was nothing before. I couldn't ever give it up."

He gathered her up in his arms, causing her vision to go black as it had been for nearly her whole life. He held her tightly and his breath was warm against her ear, "I love you, Toph."

"I love you, Aang."

"I'm all yours, you know that, right?"

She'd laughed jovially and squeezed tightly at his smooth, bare torso. "I know. And I'm all yours."

But when they were twenty-nine, that wasn't how she awoke from her dreams. Instead, when she opened her eyes, she saw nothing just as she always had. Her dreams were filled with empty memories and colours that did not exist and she awoke in her own bed, with the cold floor the only welcome to her calloused feet, and she was alone.

He wasn't hers and she knew it like lead in her heart.

Those days, she preferred the lies.


	7. Day 7- Realization

**Author's Note:** I was going to do another sad "but-soft-what-light-through-yon-window-Juliet-is- the-sun-and-they-can-never-be" angsty piece. But. I'm very very very very late in this, so you get some silliness instead. (And to think, I'm **finally** finishing this just in time to get started on Zutara week…. Sigh.)

* * *

Day 7- Realization

* * *

When they were sixteen years old, Aang realized something that would forever change his life.

"—then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked."

Aang lifted his face from his hands, his featured arranged in disbelief and red with embarrassment. "What?" he sputtered. The familiar words that Katara had so often used to artfully spin a narration of the war's happenings echoed through his obnoxiously disproportionate ears. _How did that even relate to…_ "That doesn't even make sense, Sokka!"

The Water Tribe warrior's eyebrow rose comically as he stroked his heavily dark-stubbled chin in thought. "Doesn't it," he prodded ominously. The similarities were blatant, Sokka could see, so it should have just been obvious to Aang _why_ he was right, even in comparing the situation in such a way. It was, in fact, _genius_.

Aang interrupted his musings. "No," he snipped, frustrated, "it doesn't. We weren't talking about the war _or_ the Fire Nation."

"But, my young protégée, you never would have even _known_ Toph if it weren't for the Fire Nation attacking." Sokka's blue eyes closed smugly. _Ah,_ he thought_, I love when others recognize my genius_. Based on the look of shock on the Avatar's face, Sokka knew that in that moment the boy had done just that. "So therefore"—for dramatic effect, he cleared his throat—"I repeat: _everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked._"

The sixteen-year-old boy huffed. He threw the gnawed rice cake in his hand at the older man's head. "You're a dunce, Sokka. I was a _kid_ when the attacks began and Toph wasn't even born then."

This time, Sokka's answer included first a roll of his eyes. "_I'm_ the dunce? You're the one who just came to me in a panic because you _only just_ realized that Toph is a _girl_."

If his cheeks weren't so violent red, his face would have seemed ashen and pale. "That's not—I—I _knew_ that Toph is a girl. I've _always_ known that." But still, his eyes skirted about anywhere but the man he'd come to see as a brother.

Sokka crossed his arms over his broad chest—he was getting _so_ good at pretending to be un-amused by hilarious situations such as this (and it was quite the talent, if he did say so himself—which he did). At least when it benefitted the situation, anyway. "Of course you did. That would explain why you came running in here in a cold sweat chanting, '_Toph is a…girl_' as though you were possessed."

"Well, I—_you don't_—she—" Aang's fists curled in on themselves and his entire body went stiff like a board. "You think this is funny. It's not like you're so suave, yourself."

Sokka wondered when he'd been learning these new, horribly inaccurate and unrelated words.

"I'm suave!" he shouted. The hit to his ego reflected in the way the veins in his neck strained and his eyes bulged. "I wouldn't be married now if I wasn't good with the ladies," he argued as though it was an obvious fact. At the thought of his wife, Sokka wondered why he was here having this ridiculously asinine argument with the little bald monk rather than with his pregnant-and-about-to-burst wife (because _dear Yue, he was about to become a father and oh-spirits-what-if-he-missed-it_?).

"There's no way Suki married you because of that." She loved him, definitely, but Suki was no stranger to Sokka's lacking 'smooth moves' when it came to wooing women.

This time, Sokka crossed his arms defensively. "I dated the _moon spirit_. If that's not game, then nothing is."

"I doubt she liked you because you were a charmer," Aang mumbled quietly, almost to himself, knowing all-too-well that speaking of the late Princess was a sore topic.

"I'm charming!" Sokka's face was red with indignation and as he puffed and huffed in frustration, it finally reoccurred to him why they were hiding in the storage closet of his home in the first place. "Besides, this isn't about me. We're talking about _you_ and Toph and how much of an idiot you are."

"I'm not an idiot."

Sokka hung his head in the dim candle light. "You've been traveling with her for four years. Her being a girl shouldn't be a shock now."

"But—I didn't—she's a girl—she was _kissing_ Haru! Toph doesn't _kiss_ people!" He didn't even think she had a romantic notion about her. She was far too interested in training and toe picking and rock slinging and subjecting her young earthbending students to _"educational renditions"_ of _"the Melon Lord"_ and other things that girls just didn't like. She was brash and showed favour to almost no one and she'd rather punch people in the shoulder and risk splintering their bones than even hug— "_Why_ was she kissing him?"

Sokka's blue eyes stared at him with a flat tone and he sighed. "She probably likes him, Aang. That is what tends to happen when a boy likes a girl and she likes him back."

"But she can't like him," the Avatar stuttered out weakly. "She's Toph. She doesn't like anyone."

This time, Sokka had had enough of Aang's backward and circular thinking. "Whether you want to believe it or not, kid," he pushed open the closet door and stepped out into the light, "Toph _is_ a girl and now she is a girl that kisses boys. Get over it or don't, but that's not going to change."

He shut the door behind him, leaving Aang to his dimwitted musings, and he stalked off to find Suki (who he should have been with that whole time, because what if she went into labour? He had to be there to hold her hand, because she couldn't _possibly_ face that pain without her husband to be strong for her and hold her hand...right?).

Not long after, Aang was pulled roughly from his hidden sanctuary by a rather indignant Toph, insisting that he was supposed to meet with her _over-an-hour-ago_ to teach her to ride the elephant koi and _if-he-was-planning-to-skip-out-on-her-she-was-goin g-to-put-him-through-hell-during-training_. He had neither the words to retort nor the will to pull away as she dragged him towards the bay and ripped his tunic from over his shoulders (_"Oh shut up, Twinkletoes, it's not like I can see you anyway. Don't be so self conscious._").

And when they were out in the water, soaring through the waves and white foam, Aang clung to the koi and Toph clung to him. He would be a liar if he had ever said he didn't run his hands along her small, smooth, _female_ waist ("_Just—eh—making sure you're not going to fall; I promise._") and he'd be a bigger liar if he'd said he didn't smile at the feel or the imagined sensation of what it might be like if Toph had been clinging to _his_ shirt and kissing _him_ with those pale pink lips instead of Haru.

That day, his whole view of life had altered just enough to make him look around in new wonder. Because now, he realized that Toph was really a _girl_ and if Sokka was right, she liked boys and they liked her.

A strange emotion filled in his chest and for the months following, he would dwell on it and wonder what it meant to want to be closer to his sensei and why the engrained image of her locking lips with the taller, older, quieter earthbender made his lungs clench up and his arms feel warm and his eyes sharpen angrily.

But in that moment as the elephant koi skipped over the water and plunged through choppy waves, he was simply focused on one thing alone.

Toph was a _girl_. And Toph _kissed_ boys.

_He_ was a boy, right?


End file.
